A blog about the beautiful game as it affects Nigeria and Nigerian Players , home and abroad.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Attention: Naija club MO's, this is for you

Stumbled on this fantastic piece by Goke 'Slankey' Solanke on a Facebook forum yesterday and decided to post this.

Our media officers/managers in Naija football circles need to wake up to their responsibilities and smell what's cooking. This is 2015, there is a lot you can do within even a limited budget.

Abeg, this piece isn't meant to malign anyone but to give pointers and timely reminders why some of them have to wake up.

Kudos to China Acheru, Michael Onikute, Timi Ebikagbaro and a few others who are trying their best to improve things.

You can follow Goke on twitter- @slankey

ROLES OF A MEDIA OFFICER

Hello. Please refer to the header. This is an enlightenment to all clubs media officers on this forum and the ones not on it on the need to know the roles of your jobs and play it out properly. Most media officers do not know what the roles entail. Please ponder on the points below and see if it helps.

1. Organise match day media facilities and accreditation requests from local, national and international media organisations.

2. Organise pre-match media interviews/conferences, liaising with the Manager for the availability of both players and Manager/ Chief coach for conferences, and distribute invitations to media organisations accordingly.

3. Distribute media releases to media organisations and stakeholders and also handle all PR and media organisation queries and requests regarding his/her football club in a professional manner.

4. Organise appropriate passes for all media organisations that are attending home games and work alongside the IT Department to ensure that all media organisations’ IT requirements are met.

5. Organise and produce materials for his/her football club WEBSITE, such as interviews, latest reports and marketing, including filming and editing video content.

6. Facilitate media requests pre and post-match at away game fixtures and produce articles for the website, including team news, match report, and post-match reaction.

7. Arrange the needs of the players when travelling for away matches, alongside the club curator.

8. Work proactively and reactively with local and national media to positively promote the image of the Club, through pre and post match press conferences, making arrangements for local media who travel to away matches, writing press releases and other media.

9. Produce the official match day programme from planning stage through to production. To include written interviews, news articles and features, sourcing and captioning photography, liaising with designers on page layouts, conducting interviews with the first team manager and players and proof reading before print.

10. Supply contributions such as player profiles and pictures to away teams for their match day programmes.

11. Arrange and take photographs of match day sponsors, ensuring that the relevant items have been signed and are ready for the matchday, for example programme, shirts, match ball.

12. Produce content for His/her football club's website, contributing to the credibility of the site by ensuring that it is kept up to date with all of the latest news and making regular contributions to the Club’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.

13. Assist with the production of official Club DVDs.

14. Liaise with the President, Chief coach and the general manager in conducting charitable work through attending community events and producing advertising and marketing material specifically attendance of players and management at various events.

15. Attend various meetings with existing partners regarding media and publicity and create a wider reach to club's supporters around the vicinity and overseas.

Most media officers have not been doing enough from what is expected of them in their various clubs regarding their roles and this should serve as a guide in enhancing their outputs.

About Andrew Randa

Football knucklehead. Nigerian football aficionado. Frustrated Plateau United & Arsenal fan. Father and Husband. Works published on major Nigerian football websites and newspapers. I've also done work for footballspeak.com, goal.com, KickOff Magazine (defunct) and other international websites. I was also a co-presenter on 'Sports File' on NTA Jos in the late nineties.